Soyuz TMA-16M was a 2015 flight to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

.NASA, Roscosmos Assign Veteran Crew to Yearlong Space Station Mission
NASA, 26 November 2012. It transported three members of the Expedition 43 crew to the station. TMA-16M was the 125th flight of a

Soyuz spacecraft Soyuz () is a series of spacecraft which has been in service since the 1960s, having made more than 140 flights. It was designed for the Soviet space program by the Korolev Design Bureau (now Energia). The Soyuz succeeded the Voskhod spacecraf ...

, the first having launched in 1967. Scott Kelly and

Mikhail Korniyenko Mikhail Borisovich Kornienko (Михаил Борисович Корниенко; born 15 April 1960) is a Russian cosmonaut who has undertaken multiple missions to the International Space Station (ISS). He first served as a flight engineer duri ...

performed the first one-year stay at the space station, returning on Soyuz TMA-18M.

Crew

Backup crew

Mission highlights

Launch, rendezvous and docking

Soyuz TMA-16M was launched successfully aboard a

Soyuz-FG The Soyuz-FG was an improved variant of the Soyuz-U launch vehicle from the R-7 (rocket family), R-7 rocket family, developed by the Progress Rocket Space Centre in Samara, Russia. It featured upgraded first and second stage engines, RD-107A and ...

rocket from the

Baikonur Cosmodrome The Baikonur Cosmodrome is a spaceport operated by Russia within Kazakhstan. Located in the Kazakh city of Baikonur, it is the largest operational space launch facility in terms of area. All Russian Human spaceflight, crewed spaceflights are l ...

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

at 19:42 UTC on Friday, 27 March 2015. The spacecraft reached

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial object ...

approximately nine minutes after lift-off. After executing rendezvous maneuvers, the Soyuz docked with the

zenith The zenith (, ) is the imaginary point on the celestial sphere directly "above" a particular location. "Above" means in the vertical direction (Vertical and horizontal, plumb line) opposite to the gravity direction at that location (nadir). The z ...

port of the International Space Station's Poisk module approximately six hours after launch, at 01:33 UTC on 28 March. The docking occurred over

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

. Soyuz TMA-16M remained docked to the ISS—serving as an emergency escape vehicle–until 12 September 2015, when it departed and returned Padalka, Andreas Mogensen, and Aydyn Aimbetov to Earth. This vehicle was previously scheduled to carry

Sarah Brightman Sarah Brightman (born 14 August 1960) is an English classical crossover soprano singer and actress. Brightman began her career as a member of the dance troupe Hot Gossip and released several disco singles as a solo performer. In 1981, she made ...

as a

space tourist Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism. Tourists are motivated by the possibility of viewing Earth from space, ...

, but Brightman's flight was announced to be cancelled in May 2015.

Relocation maneuver

Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft was relocated from Poisk module to the orbiting laboratory's

Zvezda module ''Zvezda'', also known as the ''Zvezda'' Service Module, is a module of the International Space Station (ISS). It was the third module launched to the station, and provided all of the station's life support systems, some of which are suppl ...

service module on 28 August 2015. This cleared the Poisk module for the arrival of Soyuz TMA-18M.

Undocking and return to Earth

Soyuz TMA-16M undocked from the ISS at 21:29 UTC on 11 September 2015, containing Gennady Padalka of Roscosmos and visiting crew members Andreas Mogensen of ESA (European Space Agency) and Aidyn Aimbetov of the Kazakh Space Agency. Following a deorbit burn, the Soyuz spacecraft's descent module reentered the Earth's atmosphere. The crew landed safely in Kazakhstan at 00:51 UTC on 12 September 2015, just over three hours after departing the ISS.

Gallery

File:Expedition 43 Soyuz Rollout (201503250027HQ).jpg, Soyuz TMA-16M rocket shortly after rollout. File:Expedition 43 Launch (201503280001HQ).jpg, TMA-16M launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. File:ISS-44 Soyuz TMA-16M relocation.jpg, Korniyenko (right), Padalka (center) and Kelly (left) inside the spacecraft prior to the relocation maneuver. File:ISS-45 Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft shortly after undocking.jpg, Departure of Soyuz TMA-16M. File:Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft reentry.jpg, Reentry of Soyuz TMA-16M as seen from the ISS.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Soyuz TMA-M16 Crewed Soyuz missions Spacecraft launched in 2015 2015 in Russia Spacecraft which reentered in 2015 Spacecraft launched by Soyuz-FG rockets